


Something Beastly

by tatertimetot (aformofmotion)



Series: Bright As Starlight [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 19:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14700465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aformofmotion/pseuds/tatertimetot
Summary: The Doctor said they'd save toppling corrupt governments until Amelia was older. He was wrong.





	Something Beastly

**Author's Note:**

> Some dialogue has been used verbatim from the episode _The Beast Below_ , as this is an alternate universe retelling of that story.

The Tardis screeches to a halt, sending the Doctor and Amelia hurtling across the console room. It's a rougher landing than the mall or the moon had been, assuming that landing is the right word for what the magic box slash time machine actually does.

"That was fun," Amelia says crossly.

"What did I tell you about sitting down and holding on while I'm flying?"

"That I should do it if I don't want to be tossed across the room."

"Exactly." He jumps to his feet and drags her up with him. "Now then. Let's see where we've landed."

"You don't know?"

"Oh, almost never. More fun that way, never know what you're going to find." He spins the outside monitor down so she can see it. There's a city floating through the blackness of space. It's a weird looking city, sat on a big sheet of metal with a Union Jack painted on it. The buildings all have names on them, the way stores do at home, but instead of Tescos they've got the names of cities on them. Yorkshire, Devon, Kent, Essex. London.

"What is it?" she asks.

" _That_ ," he says, "is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky. Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and shopping. Searching the stars for a new home. "

"Why do they need a new home?"

"I show you something beautiful, and you fixate on the most depressing part?"

She shrugs. "I'm Scottish."

"Twenty ninth century." He sighs. "Solar flares roast the earth, and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves. Whole nations. Migrating to the stars."

"How long have they been going?"

He checks the screen. "Three hundred years, give or take a decade."

"That's a long trip."

"Yes, it is." He releases the monitor and it moves back up to where it started all on it's own. "Do you want to go aboard?"

"Can we?"

"Mmhm." He's already pushing buttons on the central console. "There is one thing, though."

"What is it?"

"This is proper time travel now, way into your future, so that means we are observers only. That's the one rule I've always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets."

"Catching Prisoner Zero wasn't interfering?"

"That was preventing Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi from interfering. Totally different."

"And letting me come with you?"

"Listen, you," he says, then gets distracted by something on another one of the screens. "Ooh, that's interesting."

"It's just that Aunt Sharon likes to watch these wildlife documentaries, right? And if they see a wounded baby or something, they can't save it, they just keep filming and let it die. And I don't think you'd be very good at that."

"Something is wrong." He's not even listening to her; she rolls her eyes. "Wrong, wrong, wrong. Here, look." 

He drags another monitor down, and this one is showing the inside of one of the buildings. At least she assumes it's the inside of one of the buildings.

It looks sort of like a tube station. The floor is concrete and wet like it's been rained on, even though it's inside a spaceship. There's what looks like a food cart, and a bike rack, and a weirdly open sitting room in the middle of nowhere. There are booths on the walls with creepy mannequin-looking things in them, like the wind-up fortune teller from the circus she went to once when she was really little. There are garbage cans that look just like the ones at home, and a few signs further down the way that seem to imply the idea of stores.

And there are people. People, everywhere, walking by, sitting on benches, standing around near doors that might be for a lift, talking to each other right in the middle of what are clearly designated walkways. Old people, young people, people in business suits, and people in hoodies. Way more people than there were in Leadworth, that's for sure.

"What am I looking at?"

"No, go on, use your eyes. What's wrong with this picture?"

"Is it the bicycles?"

"No, that's just life on a giant starship. Back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. Come on," he opens the door and ushers her outside into the same scene she's been looking at on the monitor. "Look around out here. Actually look. Notice everything."

"Welcome to London Market," a voice on the tannoy says as she steps out. The Doctor pulls the Tardis door closed behind them. "You are being monitored."

She frowns. "Monitored by who?"

"Yes! Exactly!" He snaps his fingers. "Ears, not eyes, way better for paying attention with. Now, look closer. Excuse me." 

He grabs glass of water from a nearby table and sets it on the floor. 

"What are you doing?" asks the man it belongs to. Amelia is wondering the exact same thing.

"Sorry.  Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish." Amelia giggles and he gives the glass back to the stranger, who's starting to look more annoyed than confused.

"London Market is a crime free zone," the tannoy says.

"What was that about?" Amelia asks after they've moved down the corridor a ways. "With the water?"

"Don't know. I think a lot. It's hard to keep track. Now. Look." He nods his head and she looks.

There's a girl sitting on a bench all by herself. She's wearing a pink-checkered dress and a darker pink jacket, carrying a school bag, and weeping silently. Her brown hair is pulled back in a pony-tail and her bangs keep falling into her eyes.

"Is she okay?"

"Only one way to find out."

She looks up at him. "Doesn't talking to her count as interfering?"

"Yeah, but look at her. She's crying silently. You're a child, you know, you cry because want attention, because you're hurt or you're scared. But when you cry silently? That's because you just can't stop. Hundreds of parents walking past who see her and not one of them's asking her what's wrong, which means they already know, and it's something they don't talk about. And they're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. But it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Go talk to her."

"What are you going to do?"

"What I always do. Stay out of trouble. Badly."

* * *

"Hi," Amelia says, sitting down on the bench beside the crying girl. "I'm Amelia."

"Mandy," she sniffles. "You sound funny."

"I'm Scottish."

"Shut up, you're not."

"And what's wrong with that? Scotland's got to be here somewhere."

"No. They got their own ship." 

Amelia grins. That's _amazing_. "'Course we did."

"So are you from the Scottish ship?" Mandy's tears have dried up. The distraction seems to have done her some good.

"No. I came with my friend. He has a ship. A weird kind of ship. Are you okay? Why were you crying?"

"My brother got a zero."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Amelia says dubiously.

"Where are you _from?_ " It isn't really a question. "He wasn't supposed to take the Vator, because if you take the Vator when you have a zero, you get sent Below."

"What's Below?"

"Floor zero."

"Floor zero for when you get a zero," Amelia says. "Weird. But what's actually there?"

Mandy shrugs. "I don't know. We're not supposed to talk about it."

"And because you're not supposed to, you don't?"

"Yeah?"

"That's dumb." She looks at the doors to the lift. "Look, are you sure he took the Vator?"

"He said he didn't want to walk 20 decks. I should have walked with him, but _I_  didn't get a zero. But he should have been here by now."

"Maybe he got distracted. My friend gets distracted sometimes."

"Maybe..." 

"Come on." She hops up off the bench and holds out her hand to Mandy. "I'll go with you. I bet we'll find him on one of the other decks."

Mandy looks like she might start crying again, but she sniffles and takes Amelia's hand. "Okay."

\---

There is something wrong in Liz Ten's empire.

She sits on the floor of her chambers, staring determinedly at a small army of water glasses, all full. All still. All completely impossible. Her mobile phone rings, and she answers it without looking away.

"Sorry to interrupt, ma'am," Hawthorne says on the end. He's not, of course. He'd much rather she find something else to do with her time, anything other than investigate what's going on in her own regime. "There's been a sighting. London block, Oxford Street. A man."

"Did he do the thing?" she asks, suddenly paying far more attention. This could be something. This could be exactly what she needs.

"Apparently."

"Thank you, Hawthorne. I'll look into it." She pulls her long red cloak up over her head and affixes the mask over her face, setting it carefully over her cheekbones so it won't slip off. It wouldn't do to be recognised. She silences the phone before slipping it into one of the hidden pockets on the cloak and glides out of the room.

She heads directly to Oxford Street, but she isn't using the royal codes, doesn't want to be tracked even though Hawthorne and his cohorts undoubtedly know where she's heading, and it takes longer than she'd like. The man who is probably Doctor has already moved on, but he's out of place. He sticks out like a sore thumb when one is as familiar with her subjects as Liz is. She follows him carefully, from a distance. She needs to see what he does.

Apparently what he does is lead her on a merry chase through the dark underpinnings of her starship, directly to the engine room. He has his own glass of water and he sets it down every few steps, stares at him in dismay, then picks it back up and carries on. By the time they reach the engine room and he finally pulls the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, she's already convinced he's the one she's been waiting for.

Never one to let an opportunity to make an amazing entrance pass her by, she waits until he's started feeling the walls to step out of the shadows.

"The impossible truth in a glass of water," she murmurs, motioning toward his glass. He looks over at her sharply. "Not many people see it. But you do, don't you, Doctor?"

"You know me?" Oh, he's absolutely the one. Now she can only hope he's figured out enough to be of use.

"Keep your voice down. They're everywhere. Tell me what you see in the glass."

"Who says I see anything?"

"Don't waste time," she chides. "You've been placing that glass on the floor all the way here, to the engine room. Why?"

"No engine vibration on deck. Ship this size, engine this big, you'd feel it. The water would move. So, I thought I'd take a look. It doesn't make sense. These power couplings, they're not connected. Look, they're dummies, see? And behind this wall, nothing. It's hollow." He raps on it with his knuckles. "If I didn't know better, I'd say there was-"

"No engine at all," she says.

"But it's working. This ship is travelling through space. I saw it."

She nods. "The impossible truth, Doctor. We're travelling among the stars in a spaceship that could never fly." 

"How?"

"I don't know." She tries not to sound bitter about it. "There's a darkness at the heart of this nation. It threatens every one of us. Help us, Doctor. You're the only one who can."

"How do you know that?"

She can't stay for much longer. Hawthorne will get twitchy, might send someone to look for her. This was already too long a diversion.

"Because I've been searching ten years for the answers you found in the minutes. Check the voting booths. Tell me what we're missing." 

"Wait," he says. "Who are you? How do I find you again?"

"I'm Liz Ten, and I will find you. Go, Doctor."

* * *

They've already searched two decks, peeking into corners and calling for Timmy (which is what Mandy's brother is called, she finds out) whenever there are few enough adults around to look down their noses at them. They haven't found anything other than dirt. For a spaceship, it's not very clean.

Except for right in front of the creepy mannequin booths. Those are spotless, not even a footprint near them.

"They're called Smilers," Mandy says when she's asked. She doesn't talk a lot, she's obviously very focused on finding her brother, but she'll answer direct questions. "You've heard all that 'you are being monitored' stuff, haven't you?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, the Smilers are how they do it. As long as they're smiling, they haven't seen anyone do anything wrong. But if you do something you're not supposed to do-"

"Like use a Vator when you've got a zero?"

"Yeah. If you do something like that, then they turn into Frowners and report on you. And sometimes if you do something _really_  bad, they turn into Scowlers and you disappear."

"What do you mean disappear?"

"Well, sometimes you get arrested, but that's usually just with the Frowners. That's how come we've got so many crime free zones. But with the Scowlers, yeah, you just disappear and don't come back, and then they turn into Smilers again and nobody talks about- oh, crap."

"What?"

"There's a hole." She waves her hand at the striped workman's hut blocking their way. There's a Keep Out sign on it flashing with yellow lights. "We have to go back."

"A hole?" Amelia walks up to the flap in the hut. "What kind of hole?"

"A hole in the _road_. We can't go that way, we have to go around. Come on, there's a travel pipe down by the airlocks, if you've got stamps."

"I want to see it."

" _What?_  Why?"

"Because whoever's watching doesn't want me to." And because it's what the Doctor would do, even if he says he wouldn't. "What do you think it is?"

"We're not supposed to talk about it." She looks over at the nearest Smiler booth.

Amelia lowers her voice. "Okay, but a hole in the ground doesn't need to be all locked up like that. What do you think they're hiding?"

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" She shakes her head. "Fine. _I_  think it's where something from Below tried to get out."

"Something like what?"

"Like the Beast."

"What Beast?"

"The one in the song?" That means nothing to Amelia. Mandy makes an exasperated sound and recites, "A horse and a man, above, below. One has a plan, but both must go. Mile after mile, above, beneath. One has a smile, and one has teeth. Though the man above might say hello, expect no love from the beast below."

"That's terrifying."

"That's why you don't want to get sent Below." That might have been a little too loud; the Smiler in the booth turns to look at them. Mandy looks at it worriedly. "Okay, come on, let's get out of here."

"You go ahead." She lifts the flap to the hut. "I'm going to go see."

* * *

He finds the other little girl first. Silly of him not to put a tracker on Amelia, letting her go off on her own on a ship this size. He'll remember that for next time. But the girl he sent her to talk to is standing near a shop -- the sign says Magpie Electronics, although it doesn't appear to be open -- looking worriedly back and forth like she's waiting to get caught. They haven't quite scared the rebellion out of her yet. Remarkably resilient, human children.

"Hello," he says as he approaches, and she jumps. Glances over her shoulder at the booth in the wall. "Don't worry, I'm not with them. I'm looking for my friend Amelia, I think she might have come this way? Have you seen her?"

The little girl nods. "She went in to look and didn't come out."

"Went in where?" He whispers, because she did it first and that seems like the thing to do. She just points, so he looks and finds a workman's hut with a keep out sign on it. The flap is slightly ajar. "Ah. Well then. I never could resist a good keep out sign."

"You're both crazy," the girl whispers behind him. He's already got the flap torn open, but she's probably right.

It's dark inside, is the first thing. Too dark to see, even with his better than human eyesight. He pulls the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and uses it to light the way. The third thing is Amelia. She looks fine.

The second thing, however, is a tentacle. It's as wide around as a person, and nearly twice as tall. Clearly prehensile, with markings all up and down. It looks to have burst through the floor, displacing concrete and steel as easily as if it had been soft earth. It's curled a little bit over Amelia's shoulder, and she's petting it like it's a stray dog.

"Amelia," he says, above a whisper but only just. She turns to look at him.

At the same time, the tentacle snaps out, quicker than it looks like it should be able to move, and whips the air where he'd been standing.

"No!" Amelia yells.

It lashes wildly in the confined space, manages to knock him off his feet for a second. He pulls himself out of the way before it thuds heavily, clearly intending to have squished him against the deck. _Rude_.

He grabs Amelia around the middle and dashes out of the hut before it can recover enough to lash out again.

"Are you all right?" he asks, letting her back down as soon as he's sure they're clear.

"I'm fine," Amelia says. "What was that thing?"

"I don't know." He frowns. "But I don't think it was very happy."

"It was nice to me. I think you just scared it."

"Me? But I'm harmless."

"Mandy!" Amelia says, not listening to him. She runs to hug the other girl. Well, now he knows her name. "You're still here!"

"I didn't want to go without you. But I didn't think you'd come back."

"I told you it'd be fine. This is my friend, he's called the Doctor."

"We met." She offers him a smile. "He was looking for you."

"He was?" Amelia looks up at him. "Why?"

"I need to investigate the voting booths, but the computer won't accept me as human, so I can't get anywhere."

"You look human," Mandy says.

"No, you look Time Lord. We came first." He looks at Amelia. "I was hoping you might come inside one with me so the computer can register you instead."

"That won't work," Mandy says. "She's not old enough."

"Oh, we can get around that," he says dismissively. The computers here aren't very sophisticated. If he wanted to get caught immediately he could just force it to accept him, but he doesn't want to do that just yet. Simple thing that it is, though, it'll scan Amelia's DNA, check her date of birth, and then just apply the intervening years to her age, nevermind that even with the advanced anti-aging technology of the day it would be impossible for her to be alive. She'd have to be older than him, and far less human. "What do you vote on?"

"I don't know. I'm twelve." She's following them, sticking to her new friend like glue. That's useful, always good to have a local guide. "You have to be sixteen to vote."

"But you must know something."

"Everyone chooses the Forget button."

He stops walking and pivots to look at her. "What?"

"Everyone always chooses the Forget button."

"What's the other button?"

Mandy shrugs. "I don't know. I told you, I'm not eligible to vote yet."

"Right." He starts walking again. Now he _really_  needs to know.

* * *

The voting booth is just a big white room. There are four screens on the wall and a pedestal with two large buttons on it. One of them says Forget, and the other says Protest. There's also a Smiler on the wall, watching them. It gives Amelia the creeps.

"Welcome to voting cubicle three thirty C," says a voice that seems to come out of the walls. There are a lot of voices that seem to do that now that she's travelling with the Doctor. "Please leave this installation as you would wish to find it. The United Kingdom recognises the right to know of all its citizens. A presentation concerning the history of Starship UK will begin shortly. Your identity is being verified on our electoral roll."

The doors begin to shut and the Doctor points his sonic screwdriver at them; they halt where they are.

"Name, Amelia Jessica Pond. Age, thirteen hundred and seven." The room chimes, and one of the screens turns on. There's a man there, looking right at them. Or, more likely, at a camera lens.

"You are here because you want to know the truth about this starship, and I am talking to you because you're entitled to know. When this presentation has finished, you will have a choice. You may either Protest, or Forget. If you choose to Protest, understand this. If just one percent of the population of this ship do likewise, the programme will be discontinued with consequences for you all. If you choose to accept the situation, and we hope that you will, then press the Forget button. All the information I'm about to give you will be erased from your memory."

"I don't like the sound of that," the Doctor mutters. He's frowning and pointing the sonic screwdriver at something on the ceiling that looks like a sprinkler. "Basic memory wipe, twenty minutes at most. Amelia, go wait outside with Mandy."

"What, why?" She thought he needed her help, now he's going to make her _leave?_

He spares a glance in her direction. "Because whatever comes next, I can almost guarantee I'm going to hit the Protest button, and I don't know what's going to happen when I do. I'd rather you weren't in the line of fire, ta."

One of the other screens has come on. She looks at it for a second, and then slips out the gap between the doors.

* * *

"Here then, is the truth about Starship UK, and the price that has been paid for the safety of the British people. May God have mercy on our souls." The image on the screen winks out and is replaced by the image of an alien creature he's never seen before.

"The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale." 

"It's magnificent."

"Once, there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travellers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind." Another screen lights up, now showing the Starship UK, a city balanced on the back of the beast. "The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us and every other nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety."

"But that's not all of it, is it?" the Doctor asks. "There's more."

"If you wish our voyage to continue, then you _must_  press the Forget button. All of this will be erased from your memory."

"You already said that."

"You will continue to enjoy the safety and amenities of Starship UK, unburdened by the knowledge of what has been done to save you."

"But you haven't actually said [what] was done. 'Trapped it', you said, but what does that _mean?_ " He's intent on the sonic screwdriver, trying to leech more data out of the uncooperative computer system, and doesn't see the Smiler on the wall begin to turn.

"If you choose to Protest, know this: if just one percent of the population of this ship do likewise, the programme will be discontinued with consequences for you all."

"What sort of consequences? What have you _done?_ " The screens wink off, all of them, leaving him with just the two buttons to choose from. He shakes the sonic, scowling at it's lack of progress, then puts it in his pocket. "Don't want to give up your secrets, do you? Too bad."

He slams his hand on the Protest button. 

* * *

"Did it work?" Mandy asks.

"I guess so. The Doctor says he's going to Protest."

"He won't. No one does."

"He's not like a normal person."

" _You're_  not like a normal person."

The doors to the voting booth chime as they open again. The sign above them says 'Empty', and the screens on the wall are dark. But there's no other way out, there aren't any other doors. The Doctor has to be there somewhere, he wouldn't just _leave_  her here. Something must have happened to him.

Mandy grabs her arm when Amelia moves to rush in and start looking for clues. "Look."

The Smiler in the booth is still turning it's head, halfway between Frowning and Smiling.

"They took him," Amelia says. "That's why everyone chooses Forget. Because when they don't, they get disappeared. They _took_  him."

"Then we'll just have to get him back," says the voice of an adult she's never met before. Stepping out of the shadows behind her is a tall, dark-skinned woman wearing a masquerade mask and a red riding hood cloak.

"It's not polite to sneak up on people," Amelia says.

"My apologies." It sounds like she's smiling, but it's hard to tell because of the mask. "You must be the Doctor's companion. Amelia, is it?"

"Amelia Pond. Who're you, then?"

* * *

The Belly of the Beast, as it were, is hardly the most comfortable landing pad for a trip by high speed air cannon. Not the worst, mind you, but not very pleasant. He takes a single breath, and then decides he can do without until he can get somewhere a bit less smelly.

"Six hundred feet down, twenty miles laterally... hell of a spot to put the rubbish dump."

He wades through it. It's only, organics, coming om through surgically implanted feeder tubes from all over the ship. So at least the humans are feeding the thing. Feeding it all their garbage and the occasional person with enough conscience to care about the exploitation of the Star Whale. Of [course] they are.

The room whines around him, the sound of an animal in pain, alone, hungry, frightened. He can't really help himself, with no one around to stop him. He kneels down into the rubbish sludge and presses his hand to the springy tongue underneath. "Hello."

_ Pain. Pain. Pain. Age so old no numbers will do it justice. Pain. Pain. Loneliness. Pain. Pain. The last of it's kind. Pain. Pain. Pain. The vast coldness of space. Centuries pressing forward. Pain. Faster. Pain. Go faster. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. _

He yanks himself almost violently out of the Star Whale's mind. He stays on his knees in the refuse, shaking with residual echoes of the Star Whale's pain and his own anger. "What have they _done_  to you?"

He can hear the other sound now, underneath everything. He'd assumed it was part of the ambient noise of the ship. He knows better now.

"Don't worry," he says. "I'm going to put a stop to this. Whatever this is."

* * *

Amelia lets go of Liz's hand when they start to hear the Doctor's voice ahead in the tunnels. She runs ahead, so Liz runs after her, dragging Mandy behind. She's not going to let the Doctor's ward get hurt on her watch.

It's hard to make out what the Doctor is saying. It sounds like he's behind glass, a theory proven immediately correct as they round a corner and find a door at the end. The porthole-esque window on it shows the Doctor muttering at something on the other side.

"Doctor!" Amelia says, and he looks up.

"Amelia?" His confusion clears when he sees Liz behind her, then turns to something darker. Whatever he's found isn't good, then. Well, she knew it wouldn't be. "And Liz Ten, hello. Just a tic, I've got a bit of an issue here."

"What sort of issue?"

"One door, one switch, one condition. Door won't open if I don't Forget."

"Don't forget what?" Liz asks. "Doctor, what did you find?"

"For your sake, I genuinely hope you don't know."

"I have been trying to find out for nearly a decade," she snaps. "Of course I don't know. Stop being cryptic and tell me."

"Us," Amelia says. "I wanna know, too. Where did you go?"

"Oh, you _really_  don't want to know." He glances over his shoulder. "Oh, stop it. That's not going to work on me. I'm not forgetting, and I doubt that button would even work on me. It's calibrated for humans, you know."

"Who are you talking to?" Liz asks.

"Couple of those fellows in the booths. They're looking a bit unhappy that I've started to figure out their secret."

"Tell me."

"You're over sixteen, you've voted. Why are you so adamant about searching out a truth you chose to forget?"

"Never voted, never forgotten, not technically a British subject." 

"Then who are you, and how do you know me?"

If he can be annoyingly cryptic, so can she dammit. "You're a bit hard to miss, love. Mysterious stranger, MO consistent with higher alien intelligence, hair of an idiot-" 

"Oi!"

"Told you," Amelia says.

"I've been brought up on stories of you."

"Oh, that's a bit not good."

"No, they're mostly good stories."

"Not you, the things in the booths. Only they're not. In the booths, that is."

"Ah." She unholters her blaster. "Step away from the door, Doctor."

He complies, which is more than she's expecting, really. She pulls Amelia and Mandy behind her and shoots the door open. Not subtle, but the time for subtlety has passed. She leans in through the wreckage she's made and shoots the Smilers as well, for a good measure.

"They'll self-repair, won't take them long. Let's move."

"That was so cool!" Amelia says. "You're the coolest queen _ever!_ "

"Queen," the Doctor says flatly, following quickly behind her. "Of course you bloody are. Liz Ten. Elizabeth the Tenth."

"Yeah." She glances behind but the Smilers either haven't finished repairing or aren't in pursuit. "There's a high-speed Vator through here. This way."

"You're the queen, and you're investigating your own kingdom?"

"Secrets are being kept from me, I don't have a choice." She scowls. "My government is up to something, and I mean to find out what. It's my duty."

"You said you'd been investigating for ten years."

"My entire reign." She gets the Vator open, and it doesn't even make the usual sales pitch. The doors close behind them. "And you've figured out more in one afternoon. I'm impressed. Now, _please_ , Doctor, tell me what you know."

"There's a creature at the heart of your ship." He's got his sonic screwdriver pointed at the Vator's controls.

"A creature." She frowns, an idea occurring to her. "The tentacles that burst through when the roads close?"

"Yes. It's all one creature, reaching out. It must be growing through the mechanisms of the entire ship."

"What, like an infestation?"

"Not an infestation. It's what you've got in place of an engine, and everyone who protests gets shoved down it's throat. My guess is that the bit that goes 'if one percent of the population protests' is a lie. Or, well, if they die after protesting I guess they don't count as a part of the population anymore."

* * *

The queen covers her mouth, which is the only part of her face Amelia can see when she's wearing the mask.

"What's supposed to happen if one percent protests?" Mandy asks.

"The programme is discontinued." He tucks the sonic screwdriver into his pocket. "Which I suppose means you stop having an engine. Hold on tight."

Amelia immediately grabs one of the handles on the side of the Vator. Mandy and Liz are a little slower, probably because they didn't already get tossed across the Tardis today. Her stomach leaps in a way that's mostly fun as the Vator plummets downward far, far faster than it had been moving.

"And jump," the Doctor says.

When she lands, the Vator isn't moving anymore.

"Everyone all right? Good. Out we go." He leans over her head and pushes the button to open the doors.

There's a man standing on the other side. He's wearing a black suit with a black tie and he looks like he's been waiting for something. He looks like the sort of man her Aunt Sharon would like, which makes her dislike him immediately.

"Hawthorne," the queen says, stepping out past her. She takes her mask off and passes it behind her; the Doctor takes it and looks at it intently. Amelia wonders what's so interesting about it. "So this is where you hide yourself away." 

"Ma'am."

"Doctor, where are we?" Amelia asks.

"The Tower of London. The lowest point of Starship UK. The dungeon."

"The Tower of London is in the dungeon?"

"Lots of things are in the dungeon." He takes her hand and leads her out of the Vator. She reaches back and grabs Mandy's hand, too. "Look."

There are tentacles behind a grate, lashing back and forth furiously. There's a giant brain in the middle of the room with lots of electrical bits attached to it. There are some computers, including one that looks a lot like the one in the voting booth, but instead of saying "Protest" on the second button it says a word she doesn't recognise.

And there are kids wandering around. She can see some hiding behind the tentacles, not looking bothered by the way they're moving.

"Why are there kids in the dungeon?"

"Hm, yes, good question. What _is_  that about, Mister... Hawthorne, was it?"

"Yes, sir," says the man. "With your permission, your Majesty?"

"By all means," Liz says. "I think it's time you start explaining."

"Yes, ma'am." He looks at the Doctor. "You were correct, sir, that protesters are fed to the beast. But they aren't the only ones. Citizens of low value-"

The Doctor makes a rude noise.

"-thieves, criminals-"

"Children who get zeroes?" Amelia guesses. Mandy takes a step toward the grate and she lets go of her hand. Maybe her brother is in there, but the Doctor is out here and Amelia won't be separated from him again.

"Yes. Only it won't eat the children, it never eats the children, and so they wind up here. We can't send them back because-"

"Because then someone would figure out what you were up to," the Doctor says. Hawthorne nods.

"On whose authority is this done?" the queen demands.

"The highest authority, ma'am."

"I _am_  the highest authority."

"Yes, ma'am." His facial expressions don't change. Amelia doesn't like him at all. "We work for you, ma'am."

"That's absurd. I didn't give this order."

"But you did," the Doctor says. "You've given lots of orders. You just don't remember them."

* * *

"I don't understand," she says. But, oh, she's beginning to suspect that she does.

"Don't you?" He gestures toward the computers. Two buttons, Forget and Abdicate. "How old are you, Liz Ten?"

"Fifty."

"You don't look it."

"Flatterer." She winks, but he doesn't look impressed. He looks, well, he looks more like Vicky's stories than anyone else's. She looks away. "Yeah, they slowed my body clock. Keeps me looking like the stamps."

He hands the mask back to her. "This is made of air-balanced porcelain. It stays on by itself, because it's perfectly sculpted to your face."

"Yeah?"

"And it's _old_. At least two hundred years old."

"It's an antique. So?" 

"An antique made by craftsmen over two hundred years ago. But perfectly sculpted to _your_  face?" She stares at it. It's always fit like it was made just for her, but it couldn't have been. It _couldn't_. "They slowed your body clock, but you're not fifty. Nearer three hundred."

"I took the throne at forty, it's ten years." She shakes her head. "I've been on this throne ten years."

"And the same ten years, over and over again, always leading you here. And you _always_  choose to Forget, just like the rest of them." Wow, she does not like the way he says _the rest of them_. "Do you want to watch the video, or should I just tell you what you've done?"

She squares her shoulders. "Tell me, Doctor."

"It's called a Star Whale," he says. He crosses the room with sharp, quick steps, and leans against the railing overlooking the brain. She follows him, as does Amelia. Hawthorne simply turns, keeping them in sight, and Amelia's friend has been distracted searching for her brother. The Doctor shakes his head. "It came when your planet was burning, I don't know why, and you _humans_  trapped it and built your ship on its back. Which would have been bad enough, if you'd just stopped there, but you didn't. Because you did _this._ " 

He pulls the sonic screwdriver out of his breast pocket and points it over his shoulder, toward the tentacles in the grating. 

* * *

He's been hearing the screaming all along and doesn't really hear the change, but he does hear the collective human intake of breath when the sound finally falls into range.

"What _is_  that?" Liz Ten whispers.

"That's the sound none of you wanted to hear. The screaming of the Star Whale." His grip on the railing tightens. "Normally, it's above the range of human hearing. This here is the exposed pain centre of the Star Whale's brain. This is what you do, what you've done, day after day for _three centuries_ , torturing it, just to keep it moving."

"What do we do?"

"We? _We?_  No. You've had so many chances to make this right and you always make the wrong decision. You don't get to participate anymore. Amelia, please turn around."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to do something terrible, and I don't think I can do it if you're watching."

"What are you going to do?"

"The worst thing I'll ever do. I'm going to pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain. Should knock out all its higher functions, leave it a vegetable. The ship will still fly, but the whale won't feel it."

"The stories say you're not a killer," Liz Ten says. "Not unless it's absolutely necessary. Is there nothing else we can do?"

"Look, this can go one of three ways." He glares at her. "One, I do nothing, you all Forget, like you always do, and I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Never, _ever_  going to happen, by the way. Or, two and three, I have to make a choice: humanity or the alien. I release the Star Whale and every human aboard this ship dies as it disintegrates. Or I murder the Star Whale as painlessly as I can. And it doesn't matter that it's the last of it's kind, or that it's unfathomably old even to me, or that it's a beautiful, innocent, _wonderful_  creature, because there's one of it and so _many_  of you." He's shaking, the words dripping out undeniably bitter because of course there's no _real_  choice there. It's just so _typical_. "Amelia, _turn around_."

"It doesn't eat the children," Amelia says instead.

"What?" He spins almost all the way around. "What did you say?"

"It doesn't eat the children. And the tentacles are nice to me and all the other kids, but it tried to hurt you when you got too close."

" _Oh_. Amelia, you're brilliant!" He picks her up and spins her a few times before putting her back on the ground. "I'm going to need a hand, your Majesty."

"Yes, of course," Liz says, sounding confused. "Whatever you need."

"Literally just a hand." He grabs her by the arm and drags her roughly toward the computer. "Abdicate."

She stares at him. He thinks she's going to argue, or ask another bloody _question_  that he doesn't have the time or patience to answer kindly, but then she surprises him. She presses the button.

Three things happen: the laser above the brain powers down, the screaming of the Star Whale quiets, and the ground shifts once like an earthquake before going still.

"What just happened?"

"There was a line in that video I didn't pay much attention to," the Doctor says. He sonics one of the monitors and it begins to play the voting spiel.

"-fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle."

"There. You see?" He points at the screen. "The children screamed, and it came. Only it wasn't a miracle. It volunteered."

"Then... all of this?" She gestures to the rest of the room.

"That was all just you. _Humans_." He clicks his tongue. "Always thinking you have to force someone to help you instead of just asking. Oi, Mandy, is that your brother?"

"Yes, sir," Mandy says. Amelia turns around, grinning.

"Good, good, love to see a happy ending."

* * *

Liz Ten dismisses herself from the council meeting. She isn't not needed here, not really. She's not the queen anymore, and as it turns out, she was never the queen she'd wanted to be. All the amends in the world couldn't make up for what she had allowed. Still, amends _are_  being made.

Starship UK wii no longer feed her citizens to the Star Whale. They won't be torturing the poor thing. Might even be on a search for the pleasure center of it's brain. Not the sexy one, just... the carrot instead of the stick. The Star Whale deserves that, at the very least.

Hawthorne watches her go but doesn't attempt to stop her.

She slips out the back door and through the empty back hallways of the palace. It's still her home, and might even remain that way if the council has it's way, and no one stops her. She sets her mask on her face and lets herself drift out into London proper. It isn't until she sees the police box that she realises where she's going.

She knocks on the door.

"I don't think he wants to talk to you," Amelia says when she opens the door.

"I know."

"What do you want?"

"I don't know." She stares at this small child, this tiny, innocent creature somehow caught in the Doctor's wake. There was never any mention of a child in the stories. You'd think that would be a pertinent detail. "All the stories say he leaves without saying goodbye."

"Okay." Amelia shuts the door.

Liz blinks, surprised.

" _Amelia!_ " she hears, slightly muffled, and then the door opens again and the Doctor leans out. "I'm sorry about that, your Majesty, I'm probably not the best person to teach her about manners."

"I'm not- I abdicated," she reminds him.

"Under duress. And you can tell the council I said so, if you like."

"Why would you-"

"Because I try not to judge people based solely on the worst thing they've ever done. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did." He glances over his shoulder, further into the ship. "You did something terrible. So did I, once. The only thing we can do is keep going, keep doing good, and hope that maybe, someday, that will be enough."

"What did you do?" The words are out before she can think better of them.

He stares at her, cold and alien in a way he hadn't seemed even when he'd been cursing out her entire species, and she forgets to breathe for a beat. Two. Three. "Do good, Liz Ten."

This time when the door shuts, it stays that way. She stands, alone despite her citizens moving around her, until the police box fades from view.  
  



End file.
